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Indian court convicts 5 men in Mumbai gang rapes

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Modified: March 20, 2014 at 5:36 am •
Published: March 20, 2014

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One of four men convicted of gang raping a photojournalist in India's financial capital of Mumbai last year stands inside a police van as he is brought to prison, in Mumbai, India, Thursday, March 20, 2013. The Mumbai court is expected to sentence the men on Friday, said Maharashtra state Home Minister R.R. Patil. The four face a minimum of 20 years in prison, and could receive life sentences, said Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam. (AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade)

The women cannot be identified under Indian law.

The men convicted of the crimes range in age from 19 to 26, according to the Press Trust of India news agency. In the weeks after the attack on the photojournalist, Mumbai police said the suspects had little to no education and lived in the slums near the abandoned mill.

Both trials were held by a fast-track court in a country where the judiciary is notorious for delays. But rape cases have taken on a sense of urgency since December 2012, when a 23-year-old medical student was fatally gang-raped on a moving bus in New Delhi.

Rape, rarely talked about in India's deeply conservative society, became front-page news, with demands that police do more to protect women. Pledging to crack down, the federal government created fast-track courts for rape cases, doubled prison terms for rape, and criminalized voyeurism and stalking.

Four men have been sentenced to death in the New Delhi gang rape case.